Hollywood Spectator (1931)

8 Hollywood Spectator to exasperate me nor good enough to entertain me. It is just nothing, with some good direction by Thornton Freeland and satisfactory performances by Edward Everett Horton, Sidney Fox and a few others. It is a perfect example of the kind of screen entertainment that reduced the Fox earnings by over three million dollars in less than three months — a photographed stage play that thought it was strutting in motion picture clothes. I stood as much of it as I could, and while I still was awake I left, which makes Six-Cylinder Love the fourth picture I have walked out on since I started the Spectator over five years ago. In sticking out all the rest I felt I was performing my duty to Spectator readers, but even a sense of duty has its limits. Throw Him Out GEORGE Shaffer, who writes a Hollywood column for The Chicago Tribune, made Ronald Colman the victim of a deliberate and malicious lie. He credited the Goldwyn star with a statement to the effect that he never accepted an invitation to a social function without having the hostess submit to him a list of the names of the guests; doing this, as Shaffer explained, in order that he would know if any American newspaper person was to be present, in which case Colman would not go or the hostess would have to remove the name of the offending guest from her list. Of course, those of us out here who know Ronnie, know how ridiculous such a statement is. Colman has dined at my house. I am an American newspaper man and he never asked who the other guests were to be. v ▼ The YARN is so utterly absurd that it does not warrant even a denial. Yet it can do, and probably is doing, incalculable harm to Colman from a purely commercial standpoint. Papers all over the country have commented on it, and although a denial promptly was put on the trail of the story, it will be like all other denials in that it never will catch up to the lie. Newspapermen who read only the he, and not knowing Colman, probably will accept it as the truth, with the result that they will have a feeling of antagonism when they approach the reviewing of a Colman picture or the insertion in their columns of publicity about him and his pictures. Purely as a measure to protect their own business interests, all Hollywood studios should shut their doors to Shaffer and no publicity department should supply him with any information. Hollywood should be made an inhospitable place for liars with newspaper connections. Don’t Buy Now AS IT APPEARS to me, the “buy now” movement can be of benefit only to producers and can mean nothing whatever to exhibitors. If Hollywood had been turning out pictures that had maintained a satisfactory level of prosperity for exhibitors, they might be justified in going it blind in placing their orders for future deliveries, as there would be no reason for anticipating a falling-off in quality. But Hollywood has not been turning out box-office pictures. It has been supplying film houses with attractions that have failed to attract money to the box-office, and the production program of each of the major organizations this season calls for the virtual duplication of the pictures that the public refused to patronize last year. Why should an exhibitor be in a hurry to buy something that is going to make his business worse? The big companies are thinking of their own welfare, not that of the exhibitors, when they urge early buying. They need buying orders to spread on the desks of bankers from whom must come the money to keep the companies going. Exhibitors, however, have plenty of financial worries of their own, and I don’t see why they should be asked to forget them and think only of those of the companies that are responsible for the box-office slump. ^ ^ While I CAN not see one reason why exhibitors should buy now, I can see a great big one why they should buy later. The producing organizations have flooded film publications with flamboyant announcements of the box-office smashes that are going to be made this season. They did the same thing last season and the box-office depression proves that they did not keep their word. Why should exhibitors expect them to live up to this season’s promises? If producers did not know last season what the public wanted, what mental revolutions have they gone through to enable them to guess right this season ? But let us suppose that Hollywood is going to send out a flock of box-office pictures during the next twelve months. Will they do any more for the exhibitor if he buys now than they will if he buys later? If the producers are so sure of the new season’s quality, what have they to fear if exhibitors don’t buy until they have a chance to see what they are buying? The Quigley publications, supported by, and run for, the big producers, are whooping it up for the “buy now” idea. I have no quarrel with that. I like to read publications that stand for something, even though it is something that I can not stand for myself. The Quigley forces maintain an office on the Paramount lot, from which all other film publication representatives are barred, and it is only right that they should do everything in their power to advance the interests of their friends. So far, however, I have failed to read in a Quigley publication one sound reason why an exhibitor should buy now. Wait and see what the independents are going to offer for sale. The whole “buy now” proposition is aimed at the independent producers from whom ultimately the real box-office pictures will come. i 1 SPECIALISTS IN INSURED INVESTMENTS ANNUITIES LIFE INSURANCE rhe Logan Agency BARNETT BLDG. HEMPSTEAD 2352 HOLLYWOOD CALIFORNIA